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Comment by Daviey | Hacker News Reader

I created a parody account for a celebrity, which was getting quite popular. Without discussing it first, they just removed the account and ignored 3 x emails asking them why. I was gutted.

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Well, like any good social media platform, they have no actual support. It's impossible by design to ever speak to an actual human who works at Twitter except via form-email smoke signals.

>It's impossible by design to ever speak to an actual human who works at Twitter

There absolutely is, if you have a friend of a friend work there in which case you can get special backchannel treatment and they'll ban whomever tweets something unpleasant at you.

Isn't this the case at most of the "trendy" tech companies?

*whoever

Well, having people answer phones costs money, and you are not paying for Twitter. Your "data" and "eyeballs" aren't actually worth much. Would you be ok with a premium rate number where you pay per minute?

Actually, that's... not a terrible idea. It's not the best idea, but pulled off right, a simple "we'll help you but if it's not a security issue, site downage or a serious harassment incident you gotta pay" is way better than current help models for social media/large sites.

I agree with the overall idea, but let's keep it affordable. Something like $10-15 per call.

Why not a 900 number (remember those?), pay per minute.

Then people would accuse them, fairly or not, of being slow on purpose to collect more money.

It's not the user's fault if the business model isn't sustainable.

Sorry, but no. This isn't acceptable. The value in their product is the people. Cutting them off, without discussion means they are selecting their product choice. If a human did this, based on a complaint (perhaps), they can talk to both sides - not just the complainant.

I tried to sign up and went through the horrible sms gateway check only to find that the username I wanted wasn't available. I stopped the sign up process at that point without an account but I wanted to be sure my phone number was no longer in their database. I've filed a handful of requests to clarify the situation but ive been ignored every time. Really terrible experience, will never make an account now.

Same thing happened to me! Though mine was not getting popular.

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